MarkBook To SAS Interface

MarkBook^® section 11-2

MarkBook Electronic Transfer to SAS

Exporting Grades, Comments, Learning Skills, Attendance, etc. to SAS Reports

Asylum Software has a separate MarkBook Transfer program for the purpose of enabling each teacher to generate a delimited file to export their MarkBook class data to SAS electronically. This program is in each user's MarkBook directory and it can be launched at any time. It may be launched independently using it's own icon or called from MarkBook. Incomplete SAS files will also reside in the user's MarkBook directory and can be re-opened to edit or complete. Once complete, submit the file over the school's network or on diskette.

SAS also generates a text file with the school's comment bank in a form that the MarkBook transfer program can read and use. This enables each teacher to select their three comment codes electronically and preview the wording of the selected text. A printout of the available comments shouldn't be necessary. SAS users may submit free-form text comments up to 204 characters in length.

The transfer file must be set up for SAS. If not already done so, click on the Setup button (see the MarkBook Transfer image below) and select SAS and the Type from among the options.

Setting Up The Transfer To SAS

When launched independently, the MarkBook/SAS export opens with the following MarkBook Transfer screen and asks the teacher/user to look for a specific class folder. If launched directly from MarkBook, this screen will be by-passed and the user will go to the next Do You Want to ... screen automatically. The teacher will likely have several current classes. The selected class folder in this example is PHG2DO-02 and the data is stored in a MarkBook folder called MBPHG2DO-0202. Note that this location of the class folders can be set as the default using the Save as Default Path button. Once the desired class is found, click Next in the lower right.

Selecting the Transfer to SAS from the drop down menu

Once the transfer program is set up, select it from the drop down menu in MarkBook main operating screen, section 3-1. Click Transfer to SAS to launch. The user may also launch the class from the following screen by clicking on the class and then clicking Next. In either case, the Do You Want to ... screen will appear.

Selecting A Class For Transfer to SAS

The user is now prompted to select the type of report.

Selecting The Type of SAS Report

The teacher must also select a Grade Level from the pop-down menu in the previous screen. Click on a choice from the menu.

If the teacher has previously worked on a SAS file for this class, their unfinished file will appear in the Continue Working On ... window. In this case, the teacher may elect to open this existing file for the purpose of editing it or to complete it. Click once once the file name, PHG2DO-02.MTF in this example to select it. To delete the working file and start again, click the Delete button.

Whether starting a new file, or continuing to groom an existing one, click on Start New File or Continue to move to the next screens. In the case of Continue, the user may select the option to update their class grade and attendance data using the two cells underneath the Continue button. The Start New File selection will give the following screen.

Selecting The Type of SAS Report

If this is the first time working on a transfer file for this report cycle, select the appropriate options using the screen above. Click Next to move to the screen below.

The export program draws data from the MarkBook user's source files previously identified. At the top, there is a scrollable list to move through the entire class student by student. The student number appears. If edited, this program will re-write it in the user's source file. Attendance is summarized automatically. The grade, 87% in the following example, is editable but this will NOT re-write the user's source data. Editing may be necessary based on the modal or "most consistent" analysis described in section 8-9. You may edit this mark to NR. Similarly, the attendance is editable but any change will not re-write the source data. Fill in the ESL, ELD, and OST cells as appropriate. If a MarkBook comment was built, it appears in the window at the bottom. This particular comment is way over the 204 character count allowed by SAS. It must be edited on this screen or deleted entirely to build a smaller comment as described below.

In the Learning Skills frame, use any of the four buttons to flood-fill the five skills. Or, use the five pop-down menus to select skills one at a time. If this is a French report, the Use of Spoken French Learning Skill will be available. For English districts, it's grayed out.

Secondary Report and File Generator

SELECTING / BUILDING REPORT CARD COMMENTS

There are two kinds of comments that may be sent to SAS for report cards. The user may send free-form text comments like the one in the image above. Or, the user may selected 'canned' comments from a SAS bank. A user may mix the two kinds of comments even within a class. Some students may receive a free-form comment and others receive three comment codes. MarkBook will prevent the user from sending both.

Canned comments

SAS exports its district comment bank to MarkBook as a small text file. The file will be called either RCMKBK_COMM.TXT or SASExport.txt. Copy this SAS file into the MarkBook directory. If either text file is used, the user will be able to see the comments and get a visual confirmation that the correct numbers are being used as in the previous image.

In the Comment frame at the bottom of this image, the MarkBook Transfer program enables the user to type three comment numbers for the SAS report in the Enter Comment Code Numbers cells. The example below shows how two of the comment code numbers, 0210 & 0222 show the text of the comment if the RCMKBK_COMM.TXT file is present. If an invalid comment number is typed in any of the three cells, MarkBook will warn the user. If the text file from SAS is available, the View Codes and Comments button replaces the lower part of this frame with a display of the available comment bank in SAS.

Secondary Report and File Generator

Click on the View Codes and Comments button in the previous image to get this next screen. In the bottom two-thirds of the frame, all of the district's SAS comments will display vertically in numerical order. Double click any comment to select it. Its number will be added to the three cells at the upper left above the displayed bank. In this example, the user has selected two, 0210 & 0222, and is ready to select one more. Note that the text of the whole comment displays to the right of the selected numbers.

Secondary Report and File Generator

The Clear Last button will remove the last selected comment. Repeat as necessary to remove all three. Back returns to the prior screen with the text of the selected comments displayed.

The Find button enables the user to select a subset of the bank using a specific word or phrase. In the following example, the user clicked the Find button and typed the word attitude into the window. After clicking OK, a complete subset of the SAS comment bank appears with all comments containing the text "attitude". Again, double click any comment to select it. Click Back when finished.

Comment Finder 2

If comment selection for the whole class data isn't finished, click on the Save 'Working File' - Exit button above to store a partially completed file. The program will create a storage file with all data as built so far. The user can return to this file using the Continue Working On ... window in one of the images above. Once all student data is complete, click on Save Report File above to generate a delimited file for submission to SAS. This transfer program will scan the entire class and warn the user about defects such as missing data. If there are no defects detected, the user will have the option of creating an Individual File or adding all classes to a Combined File. In fact, all teachers in the school could add their class data to a common file ready for submission to SAS. The fewer files to handle, the better.

Saving the SAS file

Clicking on either selection will open a dialogue box asking the user where they would like to save the file. Once a location is selected, this program will generate a file like the following example showing four students. The fields are student number, course code, section, the grade, three 4-digit comment codes, absences, lates, five or six learning skills, etc. All fields are enclosed in quotes.

SAS File as seen in NotePad

Submit the file over the network or on diskette through the school's computer secretary. Your IT department will provide direction as to how to move the data to the school's or district's mainframe computer.

Free-form Text comments

The transfer program assumes that you are making a free-form comment if you type anything in the lower window. This includes any edit of the text built from the three canned comments. Type, paste, or edit to build an acceptable paragraph. Note the suggestions in the red text of this image. The three comment code number cells will not accept anything while you have a free-form comment in progress. To return to canned comment construction, block and delete all text in this window. Note that this comment is red because it's way over the limit of 204 characters. MarkBook will not allow any student's comment to exceed that limit.

Free-form Text Comments

ATTENDANCE

A summary of the number of absences and lates will transfer to SAS as part of this export. If the school enters any attendance values in MarkBook and brings over the MarkBook data to SAS, then the MarkBook Attendance value will overwrite the attendance values in SAS's Report Card file. The log of updating SAS Report Card Attendance data will log all the changes made to Report Card file.

There is a function in SAS RC/2/6 - Transfer Subject Attendance to RC. If the user runs this function AFTER bringing data from MarkBook into SAS, then the MarkBook's Attendance values WILL be over-written with SAS Attendance data. So, after bringing in MarkBook attendance data, please do not run this function if you want the MarkBook data to remain in SAS Report Card file.

Manual: Go to section 11-3 to see MarkBook's export to MarkBook Admin Edition.